


The River Deep

by icouldnotsee (herprettysleeper)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Drowning, F/M, Sleep Paralysis, bad things happen, the feeling of being trapped
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-09 01:03:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11093664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herprettysleeper/pseuds/icouldnotsee
Summary: In which Dean has the same dream of a girl drowning, and he can never save her—until he can. He manages to convince himself it’s irrelevant until he gets a call from a real estate agent who’s got his name listed as the inheritor of a mansion. It shouldn’t matter…except she’s the girl from his dream.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the song ["Riverside"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjncyiuwwXQ%0A) by Agnes Obel.

_Her scream._

_Dean’s eyes shoot open. He kneels at the bed of a river, mud between his fingers, the roar of the current in his ears. Her cry scatters all his thoughts._

_Then there’s always her call for help that focuses him._

_“Please, I can’t—”_

_He dives into the water, and it rolls over him and drags him down. He manages to swim, beating at the waves until his hand clasps the wrists of another._

_She grips onto him, her weight pulling him down, but he brings her closer instead of letting go. still trying to beat against the waves, again._

_He tries to catch his breath, and there’s water washing over his head again. Her grip loosens. He works harder, limbs aching and lungs burning until he manages to yank her out of the water._

_She’s still._

_He turns her onto her side, tries to get the water out of her lungs, and it exits in a sad dribble. There’s a long gash across her palm. She’s not moving, and panic starts to grow in him._

_“Come on, come on…” Thirty compressions, two breaths. Repeat._

_Her lips have lost color._

_“Kid, please.”_

_Her pulse goes from a strong beat to a weak flutter to nothing under his fingertips. Her skin is clammy and cold._

_He holds her close, shuts his eyes tight, even as his chest starts to feel like someone’s stabbing it from the inside. He doesn’t let go of his breath, because it won’t come out even._

_There’s dead her and him sitting at the edge of a raging river. He slips his hand into hers, buries his face in her neck._

_But then, like a vice around his fingers and palm—she’s squeezing his hand._

_He jerks up, eyes wide, and—_

Dean’s eyes open at three am, and he’s paralyzed in bed. Paralysis was never a thing for him until he started dreaming of the girl and her drowning, and he feels trapped in this skin, his eyes darting around, his body in place.

It’s dark. There’s an easel supporting a half-covered canvas near the window, bent rays of moonlight filtering into the room. Shadows. Empty blue and black space. Just a room.

It takes two minutes that feel like two hours before it melts away and he regains the use of his limbs.

Dean yanks himself out of bed and turns on every light in the apartment.

~*~

“Hello, I’m looking for a Dean Winchester?”

He balances the phone between his ear and shoulder and tilts the frying pan. Get on the plate, scrambled eggs, _not on the counter what the_ —ah, bingo.

“This is he, how may I help you?” He sits at the table with his food.

“I…well, sir, according to this you have an estate. I just need you here so we can transfer ownership.”

He can smell the eggs. They’re halfway to his mouth. His hand is frozen, his appetite is gone. “Uh, _what?_ ”

“Well, Henry Winchester has passed, and you’re listed on his will. You weren’t told about this prior to now?”

Well, clearly not. “No. And you’re…?”

“Oh, um,” she stutters a little. “Sorry, I’m Y/N Mills, real estate agent. Do you think that you could come by?”

“Yeah, of course.”

He shoves a few bites of his eggs in before he feels half-sick, then a quick drive to the office.

It’s the assistant he sees first. She’s got long blonde hair and a sweet smile, shows him a seat, asks, “Would you like some water?” to which he answers politely, “No, thanks.”

Ms. Mills comes in a flurry, all red blazer and frantic movements and, “God, so sorry I’m late, I had to run and grab some things.”

“Got your coffee, Miss,” the assistant says.

“Jo, you’re a lifesaver, _thank you,_ ” she says as she settles into her chair. Jo says something that’s gotta be an inside joke because Ms. Mills laughs as Jo exits.

Ms. Mills looks up to face him, and all he can see is water and land that’s never close enough.

It’s her.

She’s looking at him expectantly, healthy and moving and not dead/maybe awake. He’s blanked.

“Sorry, could you repeat that?”

She smiles tiredly, rubs at her eyes and straightens the stacks of paper. “Henry Winchester is your grandfather, correct?”

“Yeah—yes, ma’am.”

She takes in a long breath of air, not water. His lungs are burning.

It’s just a dream. Just a reoccurring dream he can’t ever get rid of, and last time, _she woke up._

He has the distinct feeling of sickness that’s he’s had since he realized that the dream wasn’t going away, the one usually accompanied by a voice that says: _you can’t stay out of the life for long, Dean. You know this._

“I’m guessing you didn’t know about this property?”

He’s back in the real world, places his hands together in his lap, then lays them flat on top of each thigh. Each position is wrong.

“No, I didn’t, and it’s just…my granddad and I didn’t really know each other all that well.”

They didn’t know each other at all. Dean has one distinct memory of his grandpa—he must’ve been five or so. Sammy was sleeping somewhere in their house, and their grandfather and his girlfriend Josie had visited. He remembers playing with a ball that had rolled down the hallway, and he’d chased it till he was a few feet away from an argument raging in one of the rooms, about abandonment and never being loved. Even as a kid, he’d backed away.

His grandfather had never visited again.

“Mmm, I understand.” She bites slightly into her bottom lip, and he doesn’t notice that she worries at it or that they aren’t pale because she isn’t dying.

It’s all wacky, just straight-up batshit crazy. He must’ve seen her some other time. Sam said something, once—about people in dreams being people you’ve seen at least once in real life. It’s probably that, just every day for three months.

“Well,” she continues, “I’m still going to need you to claim it. Unless you want to pass it up?”

He looks at a picture of the place. It’s dark, vine-covered, dingy, but with some cleaning up, maybe…

“Can I think about it first?” He looks up, and she seems to just…freeze for a bit. Looking at him. His heart starts to swell. Is she noticing…?

She places her stuff back in her file, and he must’ve imagined the look. “Yeah, ‘course. I was thinking that I’d take you to go scout out the premises soon, if you’d like to scout it out. When are you available?”

“Any day,” he says, and that’s so pathetic it hurts.

She smiles—he’s never seen that in the dream, just here.

“Is tomorrow at ten in the morning alright?”

“Sure,” he manages, and she nods.

“I’ll send you the address.”

Before he pulls out of the parking lot, bumps his head against the steering wheel, then allows himself to properly freak out.

~*~

“That makes zero sense,” Sam says.

Dean looks over the house, well kept, though it looks like no one’s lived in it for years. He adjusts the phone at his ear. “Dude didn’t even know me. You want it?”

“One, he didn’t know me either. Two, I live in California,” Sam says.

Dean shakes his head, smiles. “Yeah. My genius brother. How’s everything, by the way?”

“It’s good,” Sam says. Sam’s voice is getting gentler, as if he knows that Dean’s recalling _everything,_ replaying it like a movie that he wishes he never had to watch in the first place. “I’m vying for editor now.”

“So, essentially the dream, huh?”

“Yeah. Look, man, I gotta go. Gotta turn in this article by midnight, so—”

“I get it, it’s fine.” A car gets closer behind him, and stops. “See you later, Sammy.”

“It’s Sam,” Sam corrects. He smiles, and Sam ends the call as Y/N gets to him.

“Sorry, I’m late,” she says, and he shrugs it off. “So this is the place…hm.”

“What?”

She’s staring at the house with a largely confused, somewhat apprehensive look on her face. “That’s…I’m sorry, I live around here. It looks like it was renovated recently. Like…hours ago.”

“And you didn’t know about it?”

“Seems not.” She diverts, jingles the keys. “So anyway, your tour. Do you want to start?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

His fingers brush the rim of the door before he walks in. The paint sticks to his fingers, thick, half-dried paste.

She’s staring at the walls like they’re alien, and he knew that he was in the middle of something fucked up, but her gaze cements the feeling.

~*~

He manages to stay away from the house for three entire weeks before even the thought of going back slowly filters into his mind.

It starts with a good ol’ cockroach infestation, which he battles with a bottle of stinky and probably life-threatening aerosol and a maintenance complaint. Then things start growing in the bathroom, which is horrible, but that’s just another complaint and he uses the gym showers and the sink in the kitchen.

The dreams reoccur, and each time now, she wakes up, grasping his hand, sometimes her eyes twitching. He wakes up before anything else can happen.

The kicker is when he’s in his studio, working on a painting, and the ceiling falls in not three inches from his head, and if the building around him is trying to make a point, he gets it now.

The heavy scent of new paint has faded, and the house is in pristine order. He figures that it was some clause in the will, doesn’t overanalyze it because he’s got enough issues of his own.

The house is really a mansion, and there are too many benefits to overlook. The water’s from a private well on his grandfather’s property, so no water bill, and the electricity is from solar panels on the roof, so there isn’t even an electricity bill. It’s a damn blessing.

It doesn’t change the fact that even though he’s a grown man, he refuses to leave his room at night. It’s a huge and well-kept house, sure, but huge and well-kept houses at night are the setting of too many bad horror movies.

He doesn’t dream.

He wakes up, and all he can recall is black nothing, night after night. It’s peaceful, and he can focus on art, life. There’s no girl that he can’t save, or that he can but never gets to see afterward. There’s just peace.

Sam checks in on him, Dean checks in on Sam, there’s polite banter. Dean has the sad, distinct feeling that he and his brother are growing apart.

His life is slowly fading into a boring, safe pattern when he’s shocked out of it.

He dreams again.

~*~

_She squeezes his hand hard, and his heart jumps in his chest._

_She coughs up water, life twitching back into her arms, color coming back to her face. She croaks out, “Dean. Th-thank—”_

_“You’re all good, kid, you don’t have to.”_

_“Wait. You—” her voice is weak as she tries to take in enough air to sustain a sentence without passing out. “There’s, over there. Out of here. You h-have to—” she erupts into a fit of coughing, and he rubs his hand in slow circles over her back._

_“No, I—over there. You have to, the evil, k-k—”_

_He waits, keeps holding her close, waits for the other shoe to drop._

_“You have to kill—”_

He snaps back into consciousness, wants to scream because he was so, so _close,_ but instead he’s in darkness, his body unable to move on the small bed. Paralyzed.

A car drives by outside, casting shadows over his bed, leaving strips over his skin. Something shifts in his room—his hair raises on his arms, fear curling in the pit of his stomach. He’s left this behind. Let him leave this behind.

_Leave me alone, leave me alone, leave me alone._

He takes a breath, closes his eyes, his control gone.

Okay, then.

~*~

He’s going to murder whoever is in the house.

It’s eight in the morning. He’s got control of his limbs, and he just wants to go get some food, but someone’s broken into his house

They came in maybe fifteen minutes ago. He wouldn’t have known if it weren’t for the fact that he was paying too much attention, and they accidentally stumbled, probably on some supplies left haphazardly in the hallway.

Sam used to call him paranoid for keeping weapons under his pillow. As his hand closes around his gun, he thinks that his little brother is probably right.

He treads quietly. There are doors left open just a crack. He follows them until he sees her inside the room he’s using as a makeshift studio.

Y/N’s shoes are off—smart—and she’s standing in cotton socks on the hardwood of his art studio. She’s staring at one of the paintings—it’s light blues fading into warm oranges over yellow-green hills. Tension slides into his shoulders.

Her entire body freezes when she hears the click of the safety, and she raises her hands, slowly. “Please don’t shoot me.”

“Wanna explain why you’re in my house without my permission?”

“I had to come here.”

He scoffs. She spins around, blinks at the barrel of the gun before steadying herself.

She starts slow. “You don’t understand. I…” She takes a deep breath. “Listen. I met _you,_ then this place just went from crap to wonderful, and I may be fucked up, but that makes no sense. And I don’t know why, but I feel like the answers are here.”

 _Wait…_ “Are you having dreams about me?”

“No!”

He gives her a look.

She averts her eyes. “That’s not…” She looks up. “Maybe?”

“The dreams changed the morning we met, right?”

“Yeah. Afterwards, I went to sleep and…it wasn’t as bad as before. But I saw you and it was just freaky. You’re him. You look like him, you’ve got his name, it’s you. Do you know how creepy that is?”

He makes a _hmph_ sound. “You’re a good actress, then, ‘cause you didn’t look so surprised.”

“Well, yeah.” She shrugs. “I’m a good actress. I work in real estate. Do you know how many rich assholes I deal with on a regular basis? If I couldn’t act, I’d probably be out of a job.” She pauses. “You know, you looked like you were sick. Like, I-just-ate-from-a-Taco-Bell, God-save-my-bowels sick—”

“I got it.” He runs his hand over his face. “In the dream. Is there a river? Are you drowning?”

“No.” Her jaw clenches. “I’m not the one who gets hurt.”

The silence is thick with tension. She cuts it.

“Listen. I don’t know what this is, but it can’t be explained. You can kick me out of your house, sure, but my instincts say this is where the answers are. And I don’t know about you,” she’s got a hand on her hip, fixing him with a confident look, “but I believe in monsters.”

And of all the ways that he thought he’d get dragged back into the life, this isn’t one of them.

“Yeah.” Dean sighs. “Yeah, me too.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean thinks a visit to Missouri the psychic is in order, and you cannot believe this is your life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is here! Anyway, the reader's POV will also be incorporated from this point onward. Dean's POV is 3rd person whereas hers is in 2nd.

“It doesn’t change a damn thing.”

She says it into her sweater sleeve. Dean hasn’t offered her anything to eat to avoid it coming back up in case the implications of the truth hit her later. She’s in a chair next to the kitchen island, head burrowed into her arms, which are set on the tabletop.

“What?”

“I’m assuming monsters existed before you told me. It’s no more dangerous now than it was before.”

“You know, most people take it a lot worse.”

“I can handle the truth, promise. I won’t cry.”

She smiles, and he can’t help but return it.

“So,” she says, “what’s our plan of action anyway? For getting rid of this?”

He sits down in the chair closest to her.  “I’m gonna call up Missouri Moseley—she’s a psychic. She helped me and my brother a couple years back, and she should be able to help us now.” He tilts his head to the side, reminisces. “Assuming she’s still alive.”

“Assuming?”

“We don’t tend to last long in this business.” The silence lasts a beat too long, so he follows up with, “If she does say yes, though, we’ll have to drive to meet her.”

“Where is she?”

“Kansas.”

“What? That’s halfway across the country!”

“It’s a long drive, and this is short notice, but if we head out tonight, we should make it by morning.”

“Okay, I get the urgency and all, but my car can barely take me to work every day. That’s too many miles to risk.”

“Long as you don’t put your feet on my dash, we should be fine.”

“Oh. That’s nice of you…um.”

“No problem, I just want this all to be over with. I’m guessing you want to resume your me-free life, so.”

“Wait! I mean, listen. That’s nice of you, but it’s just that.”

“That?”

“I don’t know you.”

The awkwardness slides into the room far too easily. “Oh. I mean, it’s safe if that’s what you mean.” He’s saying all the wrong words, he can feel it.

“I’m sure it is, but I don’t want to. It’s not you,” she amends quickly. “I just don’t ride alone with anyone, ever. It’s kind of a thing.”

Her feet are pointed towards the door. He takes a step back and hopes the extra space will make her feel less threatened. She shuffles away a fraction, the movement barely noticeable.

“Can you tell me the address?” she says. “I know this is really important, I won’t miss it, but I’ll just take a bus tonight or something.”

“Sure…I’ll just go ahead and call her. Can I get your number? So I can call you if one of us gets there first or something.”

She nods, and they exchange phones and add their contacts. After they trade back, she says, “I’m just gonna go on home. Sorry for breaking into your house and all.”

“We’re good.” He smiles—he doubts it meets his eyes. “We should be heading out tonight, ‘round sunset.”

“I’ll call you.” She’s starting to leave when a thought drops into his head. “Hey, hold up.” He grabs a bottle out of a drawer and tosses it to her, and she catches it. “Holy water, just in case. Bring salt with you. And,” he rummages through the drawer till he finds a necklace with an anti-possession pendant, “this. You’re gonna need to get it in ink on you some other time.”

“Great,” she mutters under her breath, then clearly says, “Thanks. I’ll see you in Kansas.”

~*~

Last-minute bus trips are no picnic to plan, but you manage to land one.

You’ve left the industrial part of the suburbs, and downtown Atlanta’s faded into the distance once you lean back into your seat. You feel somewhat nauseous. Running your conversation with Dean through your head  _definitely_ isn’t helping that feeling.

It was necessary. You don’t drive alone with anyone, you can’t. Not even with Jo, and you’ve been close for two years.

You sigh, plug in headphones and pick the book you’ve been reading to the page you left off on yesterday, try to ignore the nausea.

Except it’s getting worse.

At some point, you shoot up, bile rising in your throat, and you run into the bathroom and puke in the toilet. When you cough, bloody spittle comes up.

This isn’t what food poisoning feels like—that isn’t tinged with the feeling of a knife in your gut, twisted. No, this is part of  _this._ This whole fiasco you’ve been thrown into.

You call Dean.

~*~

The drive is nice and quiet until his stomach decides to go all post-burrito on him.

He breaks out into a cold sweat randomly, and then it’s like someone’s thrown him into a clothes dryer. All the windows are down.

His phone rings, and it’s Y/N. She shouldn’t be calling him, not with the uneasiness of their last encounter. She should be avoiding him—it’s what he’d be doing.

He picks up the phone. “Hey, are you okay?”

“No,” she croaks. “If my body was a dirty pan and someone was scraping stuff off it, my guts would be the burnt food.”

“Great description.” It’s supposed to sound lighter than it does, but dry soreness seizes his throat while he’s speaking. “Whatever it is ain’t happy about us kicking it out.”

“Trying to.”

“Trying to,” he concedes. “This might last for a while.”

“What about the charm you gave me?”

“That’s against demonic possession.”

“At least we know it’s not that,” she says, then erupts into a fit of coughing.

“Bright side and all. Now—”

The words are strangled as an invisible someone chokes the life out of him. His head’s pushed back in an unnatural angle then brought up and slammed against the seat. He loses control of the wheel, almost barrels into oncoming traffic as the screech of Baby’s tires fills his ears.

“Dean! Are you good?”

“Yeah, I’m…” he catches his breath, rubs at his neck, steers the car on course, doesn’t pay attention to the fellow drivers giving him the finger.

“Dean?”

“Fine.”

“Okay, okay…” she says, her voice quiet, nearly quaint. “I think I’m gonna pass out now.”

He closes his eyes for a moment. “Go for it, kid.”

The line dies, and he’s staring out at the road again, head pounding and gut knowing that this is more imminent than he thought it was.

~*~

**_Hey, are you good? Where are you?_ **

Relief floods you. At least whatever’s been torturing the both of you hasn’t killed the only person who knows how to protect you on the freeway.

**_Yeah, it’s a little better. I’m on a city bus, I’ll be within walking distance in a few minutes. You?_ **

**_Gas station. I’m okay. I’m five minutes off, at most._ **

**_That’s good._** You feel the rumble of the ground a few feet below the floor, your fingers thrumming on your knee to match the vibrations.  ** _Look, I don’t mean to sound harsh, but will she even take us in this late?_**

**_Yeah. I wasn’t sure, so I called. She’s made a place up for us. Said she sensed us coming._ **

That’s probably a bad omen, but all you can think is that there are fucking psychics. You may still be wrapping your head around things, but that’s  _awesome._

 ** _See you on the other side,_** he texts.

**_This is an impromptu road trip, not war._ **

**_Yeah, that’s what you think._ **

~*~

“I’m guessing this isn’t how it’s supposed to look.”

He looks over his shoulder at her, looking at the dust-caked countertops.

“No,” he says and props open Baby’s trunk and grabs two flashlights, handing her one, “it’s not.”

The house is riddled with cobwebs and it looks like a fire started in the kitchen, the wood of the cabinets burnt, the damage spreading outward. There’s growth spurting from the damage. Disgust crawls over his skin.

She shivers, violent enough that it borders on seizing. “Hey, you good?” he asks.

“Yeah, just a little off-put, I guess.”

“Feel you there.” He looks around at the decaying structure around them, shakes his head. “She’s not here.”

“Is she…?”

“Hope not. I’ll check,” he says in an exhale, dials, and puts his phone to his ear. “Come on, Missouri, pick up.” He reaches nothing but an automated tone.

“Hey, look at this,” she says, and he looks at the paper she’s holding—a brochure. “A nursing home. Think she might be there?”

“If she’s not, something happened,” he says. He stops, then, “How are you going to get there?”

“Um,” you pull up the city’s public transit website and type in the address. “Looks like it’s a stop on one of the bus routes, so.”

“Okay,” he says. “Stay safe, alright?”

“I will.”

~*~

The nursing home is well-kept, the design modern. It feels like a place to live, not die.

It’s the same way Missouri acts as if she’s not aging at all, all cheery and warm and  _alive._ As soon as she sees Dean, she brightens.

“Dean!” Missouri brings him in for a tight hug, and Dean’s smiling a little when she pulls back. “It’s been years! How are you?”

“I’m good,” he assures. You can’t help but be a little happy watching his demeanor soften around his friend.

“Where’s Sam?” Missouri asks.

“Uh, he’s not here.” He’s clearly uncomfortable. “We got out of the life. He’s working in California. Writers scripts for this news company.”

“Nice to know he’s doing well.”

You feel out of place in their conversation, and you hold your hands clasped in front of you. She turns to you with a warm smile. “And you are?”

“I’m Y/N Mills,” you supplement, reach out for a handshake, but she pulls you in for a hug. She reminds you of the supportive figure you wish you’d had growing up.

“Missouri Moseley. Now, I know y’all didn’t stop down here just for the sake of catching up.” Missouri gives Dean a pointed look, which he avoids. “Now, what do you need?”

“Miss Moseley,” you start, “we think there’s something that’s been intruding on our minds, in a way. We’ve been having dreams. His isn’t the same as mine, but we’ve each been having the dream over and over again for months. And they changed when we met. And then Dean moved into his house, and they stopped, and when they started up again, they’d changed more. We don’t know what it is, but we thought that maybe you could help us?”

“‘Course, pumpkin, but why on Earth would y’all go to the house? Haven’t been there in years.”

“We called,” Dean butts in. He clears his throat. “We called…we reached you. You gave us the address again, remember?”

“No, sweetheart, that wasn’t me. Haven’t been expecting y’all; I’ve been talking with Marjorie in the crafts room all day. Whoever—or whatever—picked up that phone, wasn’t me.”

Dean swallows. This can’t be good.

You decide directness is the way to go. “If it’s okay to ask, how will you—”

“Just a second. Both of you sit down,” she says.

The three of you seat yourselves in the waiting room’s sofas, and Missouri speaks to you first. “Okay, honey, give me your hand.”

You offer it forward, palms up. She covers it in hers, closes her eyes. When she opens them, she sighs, looks you over with an understanding that you cringe away from. “You next,” she tells Dean. He’s reluctant, but he does it, and when Missouri opens her eyes, they’re filled with pity. He puts his hand back into his pocket, diverts his gaze.

“Alright,” she says. “From what I’ve felt from the both of you, I think this is a djinn.”

“Djinn? Can’t be, they show you your greatest dream,” Dean argues.

“Some of them,” Missouri shoots back, then settles in. “There are variations. Some djinn are harmless. Some are manipulative—think genies. And then some are just deadly, like the one I’m guessing you’ve interacted with. Yours will string up someone, make them dream up a perfect lifetime. They’re the most common. But then there are some that thrive off recurring nightmares. Now, that last group’s extremely rare, but they exist. They work in packs.”

“Does someone—is it normal for someone to show up in your dream?”

Missouri bites her lip, eyes darting between the two of you. “Yes. But it’s even rarer than nightmare djinn’s feeding on single people.” She leans closer, and you and Dean mimic the movement. “Nightmare djinn aren’t physical, like the others.”

“Like a spirit?” Dean asks, eyes all too interested. Your head rings with fear and a big, bolded  _This is Bad!_ at the front of your mind.

“In a way. Like I said, they work in packs. Almost a hive—think bees. Their queen takes over a human’s body. Eats at their psyche. Makes them a dribbling mess that even the queen can’t sustain.”

“Like a parasite,” you say, quiet. You’re interested. You’re not interested. You don’t know what you are, but this is awful for  _so_ many reasons.

“Because of this, the queen usually needs to change vessels every few years. She’ll usually have a nest where she can do so in peace, somewhere not kept up and rarely visited. Usually, no one lives there. But this transfer requires a lot of energy, more than can be taken from one person, so she’ll pick on more than one person to feed on, while she’s looking for a new host.”

“So, us,” you verify.

“Seems to be.”

“Why?” Dean asks.

“Like I said, she needs more sustenance. So…she’ll feed on the two people with the most trauma in the span of the neighborhood nearest to the nest.”

“Oh,” you say. Dean’s feet shift.

“When we were driving to Kansas,” he says, “we were both getting sick. Not normal sick either.”

“Makes sense,” Missouri says. “It’s harder for her to feed on you the further you are from each other. So if you two weren’t near each other, she’d be straining herself.  _Through_  your bodies.”

It explains why the trip from the house to the nursing home didn’t hurt. The bus took the same route Dean did, so you could see his car in the next lane over the whole time. Close proximity. But there’s a question burning in you.

“If we don’t stop her,” you say, “I know you’ve said what happens to the host. What happens to us?”

“To put it simply?” Missouri shakes her head. “You won’t feel it coming, but you’ll be dead when she’s done.”

Dean nods, glances at you. “Well, wonderful.”

You think you might throw up, but you manage a weak, “Thank you.”

“However I can help.”

A while later, you and Dean figure it’s a good time for you to head out. You’re at the door when Missouri says, “Now, you kids be careful. Being hacked like this, you’re almost a magnet to monsters. If you haven’t encountered any up to now, your town is probably clear, but be careful anyway.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Dean says.

She touches his shoulder, says something quietly that you can’t hear and you’re sure you’re not supposed to.

When you’re both out of the building, Dean asks if you want to drive home with him in light of the new information. “You don’t have to,” he follows up. “I’m okay with it.”

Your head screams no, but you’re not in the mood for excruciating pain. “Being together’s probably a good idea.”

“So, you want shotgun?”

You nod. “Thank you.”

~*~

_You’re standing in the middle of a rose garden outside of a beautiful house._

_No. No, no, no._

_You shut your eyes, praying you can simply will yourself somewhere else. You’ve done the whole hand trick, you’ve done every lucid dreaming exit knack you’ve ever learned._

_You know it’s not real. It doesn’t help._

_Even if Dean lasts longer each time, you don’t want to see it. You want nothing to do with this. You remember when your dreams were just nonsense with the occasional terrifying flashback to your childhood._

_But no. You get this instead. Feet glued to the ground in a place that should be beautiful but never is._

_Then, as time passes, you think that maybe it won’t happen this time. Maybe this is it—_

_You’re inside the house, and your ears are ringing. Your hand’s around a gun, and you’ve pulled the trigger._ _You drop the gun, rush forward. Dean’s bleeding out on the hardwood, and you hold him. “Hey, hey, it’s gonna be okay. I’m so sorry, I’m gonna make it okay.”_

_“It hurts,” he says. “You hurt me.”_

_“I’m sorry, I—”_

_“You hurt me.”_

_“No, I can help you, I can bind it.”_

_“You’re lying.” He slumps into your arms. “You’re a liar.” His voice is weak. “You deserve everything that’s happened to you.”_

_“I didn’t mean to.”_

_His eyes close._

_“No, hey. Dean, stay with me. Stay…”_

_But he’s gone. Your heart drops, and the grief is immediate. The voice in your head booms, convicting you, screaming how you’ll pay for what you’ve done—_

You jerk awake, don’t remember where you are, see Dean with his eyes closed, leaning against the car window and gasp.

His eyes open a little, and he rubs them with the back of his hand. “You good?”

You suddenly remember where you are and slump into your seat. “I’m fine.”

His head turns, his entire body sleepy. “Mmkay. You should catch a few more hours before you have to get up.” His voice is still heavy with sleep.

“I’ll try,” you say. In response, he touches your shoulder for a second. He doesn’t notice that you jolt upwards a little, feeling it in your whole body.

~*~

He paints.

It’s a ship being lost at sea this time, and the sky is dark grays and long waving strokes, the sea a blue-green so dulled that it’s almost colorless.

He’s been working on this all day. He keeps thinking about the situation he’s found himself in. This problem.

It’s been years. He settled down by himself. He found something he wanted to do. He was living a perfectly normal life, a perfectly pleasant life with his art and his privacy and his brother safe from him, and now, there’s  _this._

He thought the universe was done toying with him—apparently not.

He paints the waves rising mightily over the distraught ship, punching it into the water, wrecking it as it goes down. His heart pounds in his chest, and he places the paintbrush on his palette and sits.

The floor creaks.

He closes his eyes, leans his forehead. No,  _no._ Not now. He’s tired. He just wants to paint. He just wants to have  _peace,_ does this new monster not understand?

He hears growling, and some part of his chest seizes up in familiarity, makes his pulse race.

Oh, this is cruel. He doesn’t deserve this.

He left the back door, the opening out of the kitchen, open. Because of  _course_ he did.

There’s barking now.

He searches through his bag of supplies for something to protect him, and his hand wraps around a hilt of an angel blade. He puts on holy oil-tempered glasses. The thing is still on the first floor.

He’s been out. Does the universe not think he’s had enough? Can’t he stay out of all of this for  _once?_

The hound barks and whoops as it catches his scent and charges up the stairs, and he runs out of his art room and closes the door, hopes the paintings stay safe as he leaves a line of salt outside the art room door. He sprints into the upstairs bathroom.

The monster charges, and he drives the blade into it with a rage-filled battle cry. It whines. “I’m done,” he says, punctuates it with another stab. “I left. This is supposed to be over.  _Over!_ ” He drives the blade into the thing, again and again, even when it’s just a mass on the floor, until he drops next to it, jeans getting wet in the pool of blood, his chest heaving.

“It was supposed to be over,” he says softly. He rubs at his eye with the back of his hand. He gets to his feet, only a little shakily, washes his hands and gets rid of his eyes’ redness with a washcloth soaked in cold water. He grabs a trash bag shoves the hound’s body into it, double bags it and drags it out of the house and the back of the garage. He sops up the blood on the bathroom floor with a rag, then scrubs all the remaining stains out of the grout.

His phone rings. He answers it.

“Dean?”

“Y/N?” Concern floods him. “Hey, what’s going on?”

“I’m outside your house.” Her voice sounds like she’s working to keep the wobble out of it.

“Alright, alright, could you ring the doorbell?”

The sound resonates through the house.

He gets downstairs, angel blade in hand, and opens the door.

She’s covered in blood.

“I’m sorry to bother you, but can I—can I stay here?” She clutches a shard of glass, and it’s digging into her hand. Blood drips from her palm, down the edge of the glass, onto her shoe. “I know it’s late,” her voice shaking, “I’m sorry.” Her eyes are wide, not looking at anything, just gazing at an unseen point in front of her. “I’m sorry.”

He places a hand on her arm—her eyes dart to him, and his heart jumps. He keeps his voice soft. “It’s okay. Come in.”

She nods almost violently. The feeling comes back into her eyes, but he can see her resolve crumble. “Thank you.” She nods again. She’s crying silently now.

“Hey,” he says, quietly. “You’re gonna be safe. Promise.”

She drops the glass, releasing it slowly as the moment tightens around them.

Her steps are slow and unsure, but she lets him guide her in.


End file.
